BAPTISM CANNOT MAKE A BABY A CATHOLIC

FIRSTLY...

The Roman Catholic Church claims that sprinkling water on a baby or an adult while saying, "I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" does amazing things. It takes away the sin we are born with, original sin, and any other sins and grafts us on to Jesus making us his servants. It puts Jesus and God inside us to live in us and inspire us. The Church says that baptism heals the inclination towards sin that original sin causes. Baptism is a sacrament. It pictures cleansing from sin and the effects of sin and actually does what it pictures.

The Catholic Church counts baptised babies as members of the Catholic Church. Baptism, according to Catholic doctrine, is supposed to make you a Christian and a Catholic. We argue that this is only pretend membership. Church membership conferred by infant baptism is invalid.

Even if baptism could make you a Catholic, it cannot make you Catholic as in believer.  Nobody considers an Anglican a Roman Catholic for believing more Catholic doctrine than a professed Catholic.  Catholic summarises different ways of being Catholic.  It covers living as a Catholic, believing as a Catholic, going through the rites a Catholic needs, confessing the Catholic faith etc.  Though people deserve respect for what they believe sincerely a problem arises: is it really their belief or are they conditioned?  An idea is not truly accepted if you are programmed to accept it.  Conditioning means it is not your belief but somebody else's at best.
 
God could decree that the baptised infant will be treated as a member of the Church if he or she dies. There is no need for membership to be conferred. It would be okay if baptism were understood as only conferring not actual but potential membership. In the light of that, it is unfair to class a baptised baby as a Catholic.

As baptism removes sin, it is supposed to unite your soul with God. Thus you belong to him and he to you. There are no rights without responsibilities. Baptism lays religious responsibilities on you. You must obey what God teaches through scripture and the Church. Baptism is based on scripture and Church authority. So to get baptised implies acceptance of their authority and veracity. Baptism is an oath. God and his people have taken an oath based on, "You will be my people and I will be your God". It is a two-way oath. The Church requires an oath of commitment from baptised babies before they know to what they are committing. That is outrageous...
 
It is hard to label many people who claim to be Catholic. The Unitarians sometimes say, "It is okay for me to say I'm Christian as long as in the next breath I say I am other things too. I'm a Jew and Muslim and an Agnostic." They mean that part of you will fit Christianity and part of you will fit Judaism. The point is that as it is hard to put labels on adults that REALLY describe them how can you put labels on babies?
 
The baby is not a Catholic. Whether its baptised once or forty times a week its still not a Catholic. If anything, babies and young children are the best secularists there is. They are not interested in doing what a God or religion wants but what they want as human beings.

A religion is a community but only in the sense of faith community. Belief causes real membership of the community for it defines a community. You have to agree with the doctrines in order to belong to the community. If belief does not matter, then somebody who believes in Islam not Catholicism can still be a real Catholic and should have the right to be bishop or pope. The defence of the belief by theologians and apologists is also about defence of the community. What happens is, if you depart far enough from the faith the Church will not regard you as a member. If you believe nearly all what you are supposed to believe, and have some deviations the Church will regard you as a heretic and disciplinarily action may be applied.
 
If baptism marks your baby as belonging to the Church, that does not necessarily mean he is a member of the Church. Belonging only means that you have a duty to be a member not that you are a member. But conferring the duty is unfair. Conferring the membership is worse. And that is what the Catholic Church does with baptism!
 
Becoming a Catholic is said to be more important than becoming a priest or getting married and your consent is needed for the latter. But to say that is to imply it must be needed for the former too. Therefore Church law contradicts itself by saying your consent is not needed to make you a Catholic when you are a baby. The law then is invalid. The consent law conflicts with other canons.
 
BAPTISM ALLEGEDLY MAKES BABY MEMBER OF CHURCH
  
You may say a child can be a member of a particular race and so he or she can be a member of a particular religion. But the two are not the same. You can be a member of any race without being a member of any society. You can have a white recluse or a black or whatever one. But you can't become a religionist without joining some society. You can't exist or be human without being of some race. But you can exist and be human without being a member of any religion or group.
 
Religion is divisive. It puts up barriers. No decent parent would want to make their child a part of all that. Baptism when valid according to Catholicism, gives the right to take communion. It is hideous how the Church may invite baptised and unbaptised schoolchildren to Mass and even to Lourdes and distribute communion only to the baptised! What kind of message does that give out? Take a stand for equality and do not get your baby baptised.
 
It is complete arrogance to suppose that if you baptise a child that the child will be a Catholic for all eternity whether he or she grows up to believe in Catholicism or not. It is a bigoted supposition and can only lead to bigotry. It implies that being baptised a Catholic is like some kind of default. It implies that being anything else means nothing and is somehow bad.
 
The Church says that Adam was our representative when he said his "No" to God. Why does God let us suffer for Adam's sin? For the same reason that if you declare war on a king, you declare it on his citizens even the babies. Baptism takes away the hostility between God and the baby. It follows then that the baby can be represented by parents and the nation. In baptism, it is represented by the Church. When the Church teaches its foolishness and harmful morals, the baby is made complicit in this by baptism. If God comes first, it follows that the Church is the dominant representative. And it's above the state or nation. And above the parents. Baptism then tries to give the baby a form of responsibility when the Vicar of Christ, the pope, goes to Africa and urges women to prefer catching AIDS to using condoms. You could not make your baby an enabler of evil and error and superstition.
 
Our infant baptism did not make us members of the Church though our parents and godparents consented on our behalf that we would be made Catholics by the ritual.
 
If the church and state can annul marriages - that is, decide that no legal marriage took place - that is making it law that people must know what they are doing in order to make a legally binding decision. Children cannot do this.
 
Consent made by a baby to become Catholic is invalid because the baby can't make choices.
 
The claims of Catholicism are so huge that each person needs evidence of exceptional quality to really be able to become a member of the Church.
 
The consent would be invalid even if the child were grown up for the Church manipulates the evidence so that people do not become Catholics by making an informed decision. A person who converts to their perception of Catholicism is not converting to Catholicism. Same with a person who "confirms" their affiliation.
 
Laws are intended to compel people. Nobody wants a religion forced on them so the consent to become Catholic or remain Catholic is invalid. It is true that Canon Law doles out non-punishments and laughable "penalties" so it is a laughing stock not a law. But still, in claiming to be law, it is saying that forcing a person to live as a Catholic and to believe is okay.
 
The Church says that you get baptised into Catholicism. It makes more sense to say a person is baptised into Christianity but not necessarily Catholicism.
 
Infant baptism is exploitation. The Church responds that the sacrament is such a great gift that it is not exploitation. It says you don’t ask a child if you can give her all your money should you die. You just give.
 
Catholic parents are encouraged to bring their child for baptism. But the Church keeps many dark and sinister doctrines from them. It is manipulative to have people entering their child into a religion without telling them the whole truth. It is foolish to trust the Church and its clergy.
 
SO?
 
Baptism confers pretend membership of the Church on a baby. You cannot make a baby a member of a sports club so why would you think a baby can be made a member of the Church? And if the baby is inclined to rebel against God from conception as the Church says and needs baptism to heal this trait, surely you are forcing your will on the baby by baptising it or having it baptised? If the baby had a choice it would most probably choose what is called evil by the Church - namely a normal life that doesn't worry much about God or popes or what the Bible says. In other words, it doesn't want baptism for it doesn't want to be healed.
 
If enrolling your baby in the gym cannot make it a true member of the gym but only a nominal or pretend one, surely trying to enrol him or her in the Church is far sillier if it is true that our nature is to live without God? It is really down to a refusal to accept anybody as a person, they have to be accepted as a Catholic.

Should babies despite or even because of the religious baptism or initiation be declared unclassified or even agnostic or atheist? [Baptism would then be seen as recognising a baby as unclassified or unclassifiable and being desperate to lie about that and put a label on.]  A baby would in a broad sense be agnostic for it has no idea what a God would be. A better way to understand this is, “Nothing describes what the baby is. So agnostic is the word we have to use for though it’s a poor fit it is the best we have. We have to use something.” Surely to be a theist or agnostic or atheist you can’t just be one without thinking. In that case a baby can’t be any of these. Some would say that unclassified is best. Others would say, “Use Unclassifiable!” That is good for it shows that religious labels stuck on babies are just ideological impositions. It shows that baptism is a lie. Unclassified means, “Atheist? Agnostic? Perhaps.” It is when we validate those positions and they are at the back of our mind here. So the baby situation does pay homage to them but not in such a way that you can simply call a baby an atheist or agnostic. It is not that simple.